Killzone Shadow Fall Multiplayer Q&A

Yesterday, Killzone Shadow Fall Lead Designer Eric Boltjes held a presentation on the game’s multiplayer mode at the 2013 Eurogamer Expo in London. Afterwards he also fielded questions from the audience, going into greater detail about some of Killzone Shadow Fall’s features and design choices.

You can watch the whole presentation here:

In addition to the answers Mr. Boltjes provided, we’ve compiled a list of some of the more frequently asked questions that have appeared online following our announcement of the multiplayer mode. In particular, we received numerous questions about the multiplayer framerate so, let’s dive right in:

Will Killzone Shadow Fall multiplayer have a variable frame rate?

No, we’re running 60fps. However, the game may drop a few frames in extreme situations – when there are a lot of GPU-intensive things going on at once. Guaranteeing a constant 60fps under such circumstances would’ve required undesired concessions.

We wanted to make sure Killzone Shadow Fall multiplayer would present a visual spectacle, boasting a stunning level of detail in 1080p at 60fps, while still allowing 24 players and their drones (effectively 48 entities) to take part at once. We’re very proud of the results – when you move through the maps you’ll notice lots of intricate details, from beautiful reflective surfaces to individually moving leaves on the foliage.

We’ve also received several questions about the new Classes and their abilities:

What happened to [multiplayer class X] from previous Killzone games?

There are now three classes to choose from in Killzone Shadow Fall: Assault Class, Support Class and Scout Class. Classes from previous Killzone titles such as the Tactician, Engineer and Medic are now represented by the secondary abilities of the highly versatile Support Class. We’ll have more on the Support Class and the Scout Class in upcoming Killzone.com articles.

How are the Assault Class Nano Shields balanced?

As mentioned in our Assault Class article, Nano Shields can block enemy attacks while allowing your projectiles through. Activation isn’t instantaneous, though – there’s a slight delay as you set it up, and you won’t be able to wield your weapon during this period. After activation you have to wait until the shield is destroyed or dismantled before you can place a new one.

How are the Support Class Spawn Beacons balanced?

Killzone Shadow Fall sees the return of player-deployed spawn points, known as Spawn Beacons. The Support Class has the ability to place them almost anywhere in the map (like Killzone 2’s Spawn Grenades), but it takes a while to set them up (like Killzone 3’s Tactical Spawn Points). Spawn Beacons can be destroyed by any class, although some weapons will yield quicker results than others.

Next, a couple of points about weapons in Killzone Shadow Fall multiplayer:

Will rocket launchers be secondary weapons, like in Killzone 3?

Rocket launchers aren’t secondary weapons like they were for certain classes in Killzone 3. Instead, grenade launchers and rocket launchers will be available as attachments for the heavier primary weapons. This means less weapon switching in the heat of battle.

I prefer hip-firing rather than aiming down sights – can I still do that?

If you’re one of those players endowed with dead aim, you’ll be happy to know that ‘hip-firing’ (firing a weapon without using the sights) is still an option in Killzone Shadow Fall multiplayer. Some weapons can only be fired by aiming down the sights, however – particularly the heavier/more dangerous ones.

Concerning the new Custom Warzones feature:

Will there be official Warzones?

For those who prefer their Warzones tried-and-tested, there will be default Warzones to play in. In addition, Guerrilla will frequently try out and highlight new and interesting custom Warzones created by the community. Both types of Warzones will be easily accessible from inside the game.

Can Challenges be completed in bots-only Warzones?

To emphasize true skill and prevent players from artificially boosting their stats, custom Warzone games featuring bots will not count towards completing challenges in the Progression System.

Can I play Custom Warzones against just my friends?

Custom Warzones can be private games that only you and friends can play. This is particularly useful if you want to train in a less competitive environment, or if your custom Warzone is a work in progress that you’re not ready to share with the community yet.

Killzone Shadow Fall has dedicated servers hosted in various regions around the world. These servers do not run the logic of the game – they only act as a hub between the clients, forwarding network traffic from one player in game to all other players in game. This allows people with a slower connection or strict firewall settings to play without issues. Almost all logic relating to you (e.g. moving, shooting and taking damage) runs on your local PS4, with only a very small portion of the game logic (i.e. mission/scoring logic) running on the ‘session master’, one PS4 in the game selected for its connection quality.

Will Killzone Shadow Fall offer colorblind support?

Killzone Shadow Fall will have colorblind support options that can be activated from the options menu.

an online co-op expansion pack that introduces a brand-new horde mode for up to 4 players

three arena map packs for use with the online co-op expansion pack, and

two additional multiplayer expansion packs that will be detailed at a later date.

The expansion packs and map packs covered by the Season Pass do not include maps for Killzone Shadow Fall’s built-in multiplayer mode – as we’ve said before , such maps will be released for free so as not to fragment the online community.

Feel free to post your questions about Killzone Shadow Fall multiplayer in the comments below – we’ll try to answer what we can. Additional facts and details about the game are coming very soon, so keep an eye on Killzone.com and the PlayStation Blog!

Question: Killzone Shadow Fall seems a lot “greener” than previous iterations of Killzone. Was there a conscious effort to make the game more colourful, and how do the environments impact the gameplay?

Yes, we wanted to do something fresh with the Killzone series, and one of the ways in which we sought to achieve that was through the visuals. We haven’t completely thrown the old aesthetic out the window, though, as you’ll notice when you enter the Helghast areas of Vekta.

I think it’s BS that so far, Japan get’s a game with the PS4 and EU get’s the awesome PS4 bundle, hopefully we get one. I’m getting Shadow Fall day one, can’t wait. Glad you guys aimed for Native 1080p. Also though this isn’t in your department exactly, it’s info you may know. The 2 things I disliked on PS3 was the lack of AA on the games, made some things look a little messy. But my biggest issue was, When a game was 720p is changed your TV to that, do you know if all games be force upscaled to 1080p by the console even if that isn’t the games resolution?

1) Will there be any vehicles in the game?
2) In terms of map size, clearly they’re going to vary, but comparatively, are the large maps larger than in KZ3?
3) How “heavy” is the movement? Killzone 3 felt great to me, while Killzone 2 just felt really sluggish and difficult to control

@victor zulyen
I’d like to add to that question with regards to the shield. Can you reduce the cool down of the shield by deactivating before it is destroyed with some sort interpolation of shield damage and time out that goes into calculating the cool down?

Also with the sub abilities can I get close to the Engineer/sniper/tactician game play of Killzone 2?

Oh no….that was a bad choice…why did you guys removed the 5 classes?…man that was classic to KZ….now we can place spawn beacons where we want?…another terrible choice….spawns beacons on KZ3 were perfect….there is always a huge battle to acquire the spawn beacons…why remove that?

The only good thing…..is that secondary fire is finally coming back…is that available in the SP as well?

For real the game looks beautiful but too much colorful….and I regret my words saying that Shadow Fall was looking to be just as good as KZ3 online.

Day 1 with the PS4. I have done many official Topics about the game in France. And I know it will be a great success since vgchartz is showing that the pre-orders are 5:1 in favor of Killzone against any xbox’s exclusive. Just want to say that many of us can’t wait to see some “Story Trailer”. Killzone has wonderful universe and the background is great. We hope that Shadow Fall will have a great story. Hope we will have some Echo’s epic scenes. Multiplayer sells of course, but we can’t help to see the some great solo trailers.

I’d rather have more players instead of making room for drones. KZ2 was 32 Max. KZ3, among other things, was a disappointment when it dropped to 24 players. Moving to PS4 , I wouldn’t think it to be a technical reason why the player count stayed low. Is there a reason for that?

I must say this is very impressive, i really enjoy the KZ universe because it has a different vibe to it. And dlc isn’t 20 or 15 dollars like Cod plus i don’t have to wait a month to pklay the maps. PS4 day 1 i’m out

Great presentation. It really shined some light on what to expect when the game launches in November. Lots and lots of great stuff to look forward to. Really the only area I am disappointed in is the lack of Operations Mode. Of course I understand the statement made regarding development resources and how using maps in both Warzone and Operations would impact and restrict design options. But I am curious about the decision to introduce Online Co-op as an expansion of the standard game.

Obviously this took away resources and required significant sideline development to create. So I am wondering if their was ever discussion to make this expansion content Operations, which was a fairly popular mode, already established in the previous iteration and arguably became a missed opportunity because it was never supported with DLC.

I have nothing against online co-op, lots of players enjoy these PvE experiences in what is a essentially a different take on a Horde mode. But personally, I would have been more willing to spend an additional $19.99 for the chance to play on 3 distinct Operations maps (at launch), with the potential for 3 or 4 more released as DLC. I know it is a little late LOL…but I am hoping that the development leads will take this type of suggestion into consideration for future expansion.

As a fan of the series, I am perfectly content with no new Killzone game until 2016, so long as GG can continue to provide a steady stream of quality DLC (both free and paid) for the next couple of years. Co-op, Operations, Competitive MP and whatever else your great team and this wonderful community can think of. Thanks :)

Can you please explain more on the multiplayer network infrastructure? Do the dedicated servers act as matchmaking only? If the session master only looks after the scoring, then where does all the in-game traffic go if not to the dedicated servers?

This article has me VERY excited about KZ4! I already had the game preordered since a month or two ago, but this article is further showing that this game is the true successor to KZ2. I personally hated KZ3, so much was done wrong in that game, and it seems like you guys are learning from those mistakes (along with mistakes from KZ2).

The return of spawn nades! Custom matches! And best of all, there will be official matches with default rules!!! No more Radec Academy bodycout 24/7 as the only available rooms! I harped on GG quite a lot about this in KZ2 (anybody who remembers me from KZ2 will know what I am talking about).

Oh and out of curiosity, will players who spawn at the spawn nades have a temporary invincibility? Cause when this got removed from KZ2, it was one of the best changes to the game IMO.

Oh and BTW, from the sounds of it lagswitching might be possible in KZ4 like it was in KZ2. Because if most of the logic is ran locally, then it can be manipulated locally.

I do like the aspect of less lag and superior hit-detection, but in KZ2 it was very easy to lag-switch, just flip the switch, score a few hits on the enemy before getting timed-out, then flip it back and all the data stored on the PS3 during that lag session gets dumped into the network all at once and players instantly drop-dead.

Why have a Q&A if you not even going to answer the only question that matters If their is split screen co-op or online co-op why is that not the first thing answered. who cares how many fps the game runs. The game is on the PS4 it going to look good. Their is no excuse not to have co-op you have the hardware and technology to make the game co-op. I don’t want here that you did not have enough time to make it because that’s a weak excuse you put in Killzone3 and now you have more ram and video memory on the PS4 than you ever did with the PS3. You made co-op work with far less power with Killzone3 don’t tell me it cant be done.

Will the weapons loadout be constrained only to primary and secondary firearms during the heat of a match? For example, would I be able to swap my pistol out for another assault rifle, dropped by a player that I’ve killed? Or will it be similar to Killzone 2, where the player retains only one long gun, and one sidearm?

No Split Screen on the Co-op. Server set up is explained in the article. No 3D. The game will run at 60 FPS most of the time, meaning unique circumstances, like say all 24 players in the game tossing grenades simultaneously, would drop the frame rate momentarily. Killzone has always had clan support the last two games, I doubt drop it. They are not Spawn Grenades, they are spawn devices you deploy (ie: takes more time to activate them) and they can be destroyed, so you are encouraged to defend them or they will be lost quickly. All weapons, equipment and skills are unlocked right from the start. No grinding through gear. Instead of XP, there are in-game challenges you can do to unlock enhancements and attachments. The more challenges you complete the higher your rank. You receive medals and such too that you can use to customize your player card. Each of the 3 classes has unique skills that can be applied to the character based on your playstyle.

The campaign runs on 30 FPS because visually is it more detailed and the set pieces are more elaborate. There are no vehicles or jetpacks in the launch MP maps.

Question: 1 Shady Thing I Always Wondered About The Killzone Series Was Player Ability And i Noticed (The Big Issue With KillZone as a FPS) Was that You Couldn’t Lay Down or Prone – in KZSF and Especially In Multiplayer – Please Tell Me We Can Laydown Now?

Honestly … HONESTLY … I FREAKING LOVE KILLZONE … ALL I ASK … is PLEASE Bring back the Fully self operating tournament valor system with self created clans, and organized Clan Battles, this was the Greatest gift this Game developer gave to us was freedom in their game to Create a Community inside it and to have its own beating heart… Thank you though if that can’t happen i just want to say thank you can’t :D